This tutorial will teach you to use several types of adjustment layers to create “platinum” – looking images. I used Adobe Photoshop CS2 for this tutorial, but you may use other versions of Adobe Photoshop as well.

All keyboard shortcuts are for PC. I don’t have a Mac, but as far as I know the main difference is use of the COMMAND key and OPTION key on a Mac instead of the CTRL key and the ALT key on a PC.

Step 1. Open the image.

Landscape and architectural photos are best suited for this type of effect. Here’s the original image:

Step 2. Convert to B/W.

There are many B/W conversion methods. We will use one of the most effective techniques – Channel Mixer conversion. It is powerful, and it is fast. We will create new Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer instead of ‘plain’ Channel Mixer so you can always adjust its settings later.

Each channel is a grayscale version of your image. Have a look at the Channels pallete to find out what channels provide you with maximum amount of details in shadows and highlights. Usually red and green channels are most detailed.

Select Layer – New Adjustment Layer – Channel Mixer. Channel Mixer does exactly what it name means – it allows you to mix channels in a proper proportion to get the most detailed image with high contrast. Check “Monochrome” in the Channel Mixer dialog and ‘play’ with amount of red, green and blue channels. Here you can see my settings and B/W image:

Step 3. Colorize image.

We will use another adjustment layer to colorize image. The reason for using adjustment layer instead of simple colorizing is the same as in the previous step – it gives you ability to make changes to image color easily at any time.